Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Up-and-Down

When I was in college for my undergrad, my favorite photography instructor would go on and on about how much she hated vertical photos. She taught four (or maybe five?) of my six photo classes, and after just one semester, I started to develop my own dislike of them. I found them aesthetically displeasing. They seemed truncated, as if I tore out the last chapter of a book, or left off an essential garnish on a favorite dish. Horizontal or square seemed to make much better sense in my head. But I also had a fear of being marked down for producing a body of vertical photos, so there was that.

My instructor's sentiments stuck with me though, and it took almost 10 years before I shot anything vertically. I shot a roll of 35 last summer and forced myself to think up-and-down, instead of left-to-right. I could feel my instructor rolling her eyes at me. But I did it, and I sort of liked it. I really love the idea of shooting two vertical images and pairing them as a diptych, a la my most favorite photos ever of Heather Howard's (but let's be honest... everything she does is amazing), and when I have more time to shoot this summer, I'm going to give it a try. I don't think in pairs, so it'll be a fun challenge.

And since I'm posting again, twice this month even, how about another little list? I've been working on gathering some links over the past week, so here you go...

2 comments:

That's so strange about shooting vertically. My first photography teacher would always waggle his finger at us if we didn't take any vertical photos. 'The camera has two built in aspect ratios, horizontal AND vertical.' he would tell us.